MU details events leading to death

Ten-point timeline released regarding specifics in case of fallen Tigers linebacker O'Neal

? The University of Missouri on Friday released a 10-point timeline detailing the events leading up to the July 12 death of Tiger football player Aaron O’Neal.

Officials previously had declined to disclose details surrounding the 19-year-old sophomore’s death, citing an ongoing investigation by the Boone County medical examiner.

The timeline was released two days after the AP reported that a campus police report showed O’Neal wasn’t immediately taken to the hospital across the street from Faurot Field but instead driven to team offices, which are also across the street but on an opposite side.

“While the review of the events that took place … has not been fully completed, the institution believes it is important to clarify to the extent possible what occurred on that day,” athletics spokesman Chad Moller said in a news release.

“We are continuing to do our due diligence in assisting with a review of the day’s events,” he said. “We ask for everyone’s patience as we allow this review to be pursued.”

The timeline shows O’Neal – who died 90 minutes after slumping to the ground at the end of a preseason workout – then spent 12 minutes in the team’s locker room with an unnamed teammate and “athletic staff member” before he was carried by those two to a waiting truck. The pair then drove O’Neal to the team’s offices at the Tom Taylor building.

The timeline does not specify whether the athletics staff member in the locker room was a team trainer, employees who under NCAA rules are required to supervise summer workouts, along with strength and conditioning directors. Team coaches are not allowed to participate in the preseason sessions, which are billed as voluntary.

The timeline also indicates that O’Neal was taken to the Taylor building in “the front seat of a waiting truck,” an account that contradicts the description provided by athletics trainer Greg Nagel in a 911 call logged at 3:08 p.m., 29 minutes after O’Neal fell to the ground.

Paramedics arrived at the football team building six minutes after Nagel’s call, the timeline says. Sixteen minutes later, O’Neal was taken to nearby University Hospital. He was declared dead at 4:05 p.m., 35 minutes after arriving.

O’Neal, 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, started to struggle during conditioning drills about 45 minutes into the hourlong session. The backup linebacker from St. Louis slumped to the ground after the final drill.

He was “in full cardiac arrest” by the time campus police officer Clayton Henke and University Hospital paramedics arrived at the Taylor building, Henke wrote in his police report.

O’Neal was unconscious when he arrived at the Taylor building, assistant athletic trainer Alfred Castillo told university police. He was taken there rather than the nearby hospital “so that O’Neal could be seen by staff members,” Henke wrote. The timeline released Friday does not say when O’Neal fell unconscious.

Boone County medical examiner Valerie Rao completed an autopsy the day after O’Neal’s death and ruled out infection, trauma and foul play as causes of death. Complete results won’t be available for several weeks, pending toxicology tests and other laboratory analysis. Rao has repeatedly declined to discuss the case.